Casa Barilla
The Barilla Pavilion is a large circular building with a diameter of 100 meters. A wide and strong element on the southern side of the industrial complex of Pedrignano.
This building wants to be a connection between the factory and its context, a bridge between tradition and innovation in the city of Parma.
The circular plan is reacting neutrally with the plot, without creating a back or a front and it embraces all the complexities of the surrounding.
Casa Barilla is a three floors building divided in three sectors: two lateral spaces on two levels with exhibition spaces and restaurant and workshops, and a double height central space with the main exhibition and cultural spaces.
These three parts are not hermetically divided but they fades into each other through a series of “spaces in between”.
The basement is around 2000 sqm and it is not following all the footprint of the building. On this level are gather together all technical spaces, toilettes and storages.
The ground floor is a continuous and heterogeneous space where all the functions are distributed around the central void of the double height space.
The main entrance area is located close to the parking on the south eastern side. It hosts the info-desk, a lounge area, the first part of the experience area and the exhibitions from the Barilla Collection.
This simple space of 4 m height gives the possibility to visitors to move freely and choose their own path through the collections and spaces of this pavilion.
Connected to this area, on the higher floor, there is the main part of the Barilla Collection, a more private and separated space which is hosting the art collection of the family.
The central space hosts the biggest part of the experience and event areas. The simplicity of this space gives different possibilities of layout and organization. It is a flexible and neutral space that can be used for conventions and events about food, territory, nutrition and society. This interior public square allows also to organize collateral events, concerts and big installations in order to integrate this industrial complex to the community of Parma and its territory.
The third part of the building, as the first one, present two levels of 4 meters. An area, opened to the garden with wide curved glass windows, contains different types of functions as the new shop and Sapori Barilla area.
These functions are placed in the same space and they are working as a unique area where visitors can experience high quality products and buy them as in a proper food-court.
Above this more commercial and gastronomic space there is an area for research and studies and where start-ups can create and develop new innovative projects.
These areas needs both specific and generic spaces where it is possible to arrange them in different layouts and where it is possible to gather researchers together in think tanks and workshops.
The idea is to create also a continuity between the research area and the commercial lower floor. The food court and Sapori Barilla space could be the areas where a it is possible to test and show to visitors and customers the results of the researches and projects creates by the start-ups.
This building is it a strong tactile object, a geometric architecture covered with simple materials in some way ordinary and especially durable.
The exteriors is wrapped by a smooth terracotta surface, a surface of vertically aligned bricks in order to emphasize the relation between Barilla and its territory.
The interior spaces are characterized by simple surfaces in raw concrete and floors with a regular grid of long wooden planks.
This grid is the measure of the interiors, it gives rhythm and proportion to the structural elements.
The roughness of the concrete walls of 100 cm and the warm color of the wood gives a domestic and industrial feeling to this building.
Ceilings are still in concrete with simple spherical bulb lamps for the lower spaces and neon lights for the main area.
The secondary partition walls system is a simple and light series of wooden surfaces and shelfs.
The wide pitched roof is covered with corrugated metal sheets with some semi-transparent parts for the zenith light of the second level’s spaces.
The chosen architecture is not a simple pavilion.
Pavilions are models of possible architecture. They are buildings that contain a multitude of typologies. They are prototypes for new possible architectures.
As a consequence, pavilions can be something grandiose and exceptional and yet ephemeral, unreal, at the same time vanishing.
Casa Barilla is a place where citizens and employees can gather together and where the city of Parma and its territory can fade into this industrial complex.
It is a domestic place where visitors can experience the complexity and the beauty behind the industrial process and the history of this company.
Casa Barilla is a house for the community.